Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/441527
January 2015 | Overdrive | 29 January 2015 | Overdrive | 29 Overdrive | 29 Overdrive his long-saved contacts. He eventually made his way with others after a tough transi- tion. He advises those inter- ested in getting into freight brokering/agenting on a full-time basis to be prepared to build slowly. "It got really tight mon- eywise," he says. "I lived on credit cards for a little while. Truckers always think that brokers have it easy, that the brokers are the ones making all the money. It was very in- teresting, overnight, to be on the other side of those phone calls and negotiations." His driving background "gave me instant credibility with drivers," he says, though he didn't trumpet it. Instead, it's evident in the way you talk about lanes – "a certain phrase, or understanding that tarping something is going to be time-consuming." Like the independent own- er-operators with whom they negotiate, brokers wear a va- riety of hats. Over the course of a day at nonagency-model company Allen Lund, says Lundberg, he might spend more or less time negotiating with a trucker or making sales calls to potential new shipper customers, the latter his primary role as a business development specialist. "Everybody here deals with the customer service end of things," whether that's a ship- per or a trucker, Lundberg says of the Phoenix offi ce where he's based, handling about 70 percent produce. "I still get involved with the truck stuff on a daily basis. Say a driver had an issue here or there – I'll check to see if something's legit," such as if a particular pickup-and-deliv- ery schedule is realistic. On top of the task Lund- berg's title at the company suggests, as a former own- er-operator himself, "I don't want to distance myself to where I lose touch with" the realities of the road, he says. Former owner-operators and drivers bring something of value to the brokerage world. Says Kenny Lund, op- erations vice president at the brokerage his father, Allen (a former trucker himself), built from the ground up, "We love recruiting brokers out of the driver pool. They defi nitely can work with the carriers better. They can speak that language." After owning his own truck, Lindley Johnson is now a different kind of owner-operator. He runs his Landstar-dedicated LKJ Agency brokerage in Iron Mountain, Mich. Courtesy of Lindley Johnson How do you feel about your long- term prospects driving a truck? SOURCE: Overdrive/CCJ Driver Satisfaction Survey of leased owner-operators and company drivers, June 2014. Fair (It's a job, I pay the bills) 51% Bad (I need to find another job) 25% Good (I'll keep making more money each year) 24%